Well, maybe not your heart, but this caught my eye. Let’s call him Jonathan. He was diagnosed with Type I diabetes from an early age. Type I diabetes arises from an autoimmune conflict where the pancreas cannot produce the insulin needed for regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism. Jonathan requires regular insulin treatments because without them, he will likely die.
By the time he arrived at college he knew he didn’t like wearing the medic alert bracelets, and decided to get this tattoo to indicate that he has the condition. He says if he needs to, he can cover it with a watch (e.g. for job interviews). He also didn’t want it on his chest, which would have been another place that medics look at for indications of at-risk conditions.
Jonathan doesn’t personally know of anyone else who’s done this, but he thinks he may have heard about it elsewhere. Given Jonathan’s lifelong condition, it’s a compelling and durable solution to the need to communicate with health providers in any situation.
GOOD is one of those publishing groups that’s sort of like a cross between WorldChanging and ISO50. They pull together interesting, relevant research and ideas from the web, but they bring it all together with a stunning array of infographics designed to present information meaningfully. It helps that they bring education, design, and health directly into the fold. And the have a good twitter feed (whoops, no pun intended).
An early iteration of the food pyramid – turned – network paradigm.
Since I also happen to be doing some work on agricultural supply -and- what I would call attachment ecologies (these are links that create what we call health, wealth, concepts, diet, and technology), I started to wonder how the food pyramid might be implemented using the Indian version of a food pyramid and dietary requirements.
My first stop was to take a look at some of the nutritional guidelines designed by the U.S. (since this would be my main focus – for the contest at least). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture issue new guidelines every 5 years. I checked out guide for 2005 and the upcoming revisions for 2010 for inspiration.
At the same time I was attempting to find out what guidelines India uses. This turned out to be trickier that I had anticipated. The National Institute for Nutrition (NIN) issues the guidelines. The last time they did this was in 1998. NIN performed an array of information, education, and communication efforts. However, despite these efforts, the 2005-06 National Family Health Survey found no significant improvement in the nutritional status of the Indian population in the seven years (1998-2005) since the guidelines were issued.
FoodBar
A second iteration - trying to make the network "list accessible".
As it happened, I lucked out with a news article describing how the NIN was looking for suggestions for revising the guidelines and their dissemination – specifically around how to create awareness of the guidelines. This helped me uncover a few different documents and sources of information. I tried calling of course, but that was unfortunately not productive as I kept getting passed to someone else. The basic guidelines can be found at the India Development Portal, but they must be mail ordered from NIN here. I was able to find specific daily nutritional requirements tables here, but the providence of the document is unclear (I’m guessing NIN).
What initially interested me about the pyramid was the opportunity to represent the notion of a networked diet – one that ties into a variety of cultural and ecological options & constraints. Etching through the design and layout process, I started arriving at some ‘solutions’.
weekly-food-choices
A decision support tool for making food choices.
The U.S.-based diet guide arrived first, and as I started wondering what to do with the leftover empty space (while trying to figure out how to make it less flat), I realized that food icons would do both. Then as I started thinking about how the graphic “assembles” into everyday life, the concept of the food refrigerator magnets started to materialize.
fridgeMagnet
Using magnets to provide interactivity, daily, and weekly reminders of food goals and choices.
Turing out the Indian version is going to be a bit trickier. For one thing, “My Weekly Food Choices” and “My Food Web” looses relevance in places where someone else makes decisions for you. Plus, the collective aspects of eating means the choices are often negotiated within families or groups. Thus, it will probably become something like “Our Food Web”.
In representing amounts, it’s interesting that Indian guidelines are purely in grams (except milk which is mL). The U.S. system uses two types of volume (cups and ounces equivalent) and one weight (grams, for oils). However, I think the next big challenge will be to get some food icons for Indian foods (north and south). Any takers?
